Zelig

This could well be a review of 90% of Woody Allen's oeuvre. The film is a smorgasbord of fabulousness - exquisite concepts, very clever lines and very funny ones. No film maker has ever had such a grasp of irony, sarcasm and the ridiculous, and still imbue it with wit and (occasionally) subtlety. But it is the relentless self-deprecation and extant feelings of worthlessness that eventually become wearing after you have watched as many Allen films as I have. This is the film that most impresses you with his confusion over identity however. I could go on about self-analysis for pages but it's unnecessary...just watch any given Woody Allen film. He mellows it out with a rather forlorn sense of romance that becomes endearing rather than pathetic...a skill that is essential to engage with his films. This is a fine film. Oh yeah...and very funny...if you get the references.

ZELIG is simply a jaw-dropping sight and sound as a film; hilarious.... out loud. The funny premise is polished to some astonishing level of trickery with editing and matte effects seamlessly blending real 20s with recreated 20s adding Allen and Farrow and dialog and interviews that will have you recalling and roaring with laughter for days. I had not seen it since 1983 and now in 2008 to be reminded how stunning and hilarious this creation is, well, I am just delighted to be back on the wavelength of this genuinely brilliant hoax documentary. Now I can see how FORREST GUMP came about, given that it is a similar 'historic' premise using real footage of events and eras mixed with the lead character. But ZELIG is another perfection altogether; if you know your 20s, silent films, the imagery, the early sound newsreels and all those silly songs, then ZELIG is a superlative treat. It even features Mae Questrel singing a new Betty Boop song and for that alone I cheer this almost perfect film. What a delight. If you also get to see the early Peter Jackson hoax documentary FORGOTTEN SILVER or Stanley Donen's MOVIE MOVIE you will be equally rewarded.

One of the most sophisticated, cleverest, funniest, exquisitely shot and edited, scored, and acted movies ever made, "Zelig" is a masterpiece and astounding work even for Woody Allen whose mediocre movies are way above the regular Hollywood fares.

With the modest running time less than 80 minutes, this mockumentary tells the story of a "human chameleon", Leonard Zelig, Leonard the Lizard who possessed an extraordinary ability to transform himself in anyone he met (or should I say, an extraordinary ability possessed him?).

Leonard is a shy, little, meek Jewish man whose rare personality disorder consists of not having his own personality at all and successfully and effortlessly adapting any personality he came close to and fitting perfectly to any surroundings. His skin turns black when he is with the Black people, with the Native Americans, he became one; attending the dinner with the intellectuals, he speaks brilliantly with F.S. Fitzgerald, when on the baseball field, he is Babe Ruth. The meeting with an intelligent and compassionate psychiatrist, Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow) will begin the slow and long process for Zelig of searching and finding his own personality and possibility for love and happiness. The movie provides laughs and smiles but it also makes the viewer think of more serious subjects. Are we all have a Zelig inside? Don't we all want to be liked and try to adapt to our surroundings to feel comfortable? The movie can also be viewed as the meditation on the nature of the acting ability. While watching "Zelig", I kept thinking of a book I read recently. One of the characters was a great actor who had the similar to Zelig's disorder - he had no personality at all until he was given a part to act on stage. That Actor made the best and most convincing and complex Shakespeare's heroes - he was a brilliant reflective Hamlet but his greatest success was tragic Othello. The actor's transformation to Othello was so real that he acted it at home with his wife whom he suspected in cheating - he played his role perfectly with the same as in the play results. He ended up in the asylum where he could not act but he was allowed to read...Dostoevsky's novel "The Possessed" from which he chose to adapt the personality of Nikolai Stavrogin with rather unpredictable results. When his doctor finally realized what happened, he took all books with the exception of "The Idiot". Finally, the actor became a gentle and kind Prinz Myshkin, and that was the end of book.

Both, the book and the movie "Zelig" made me think of the price the artists pay to achieve perfection in their art. Are they vampires sucking the life out of their victims only to use them as characters for their acting roles? Is that the ultimate price the artist is paying for being a great artist? Does he need lives and souls of others to be able to create? This is one of many subjects "Zelig" makes you think about.

Allen seamlessly weds Black and white newsreel footage with his humorous but deep and fascinating tale allowing Zelig to be exactly where and when History was made. Using special lenses to give the movie the old style, mixing his own footage with the real documentaries, including his favorite music, dances, feeling perfectly forever gone era, Woody recreates The Roaring 20Th with breathtaking authenticity.

M:IWIHSIIT - according to my new grading system, a Masterpiece, I wish I had seen in the theater

A brilliant mockumentary from Mr. Allen, it is the zenith of his satirical comedic career. It is the sort of off-beat filmmaking that he should perhaps consider exploring again these days even if he's not able to replicate the success of this one. The world still thirsts for those.

This film is one of the more successful Allen-Farrow collabs that consists of 12-and-a-third films, and in the subcategory of Mr. Allen's filmography where the two actually had screen time together, seven-and-a-third in my count, this tops the bunch in its tenderness and poignancy. Hannah and Her Sisters and Crimes and Misdemeanors only comes as a close second and third in that distinction. It is worth checking out other works having a darker take on the themes addressed in this film regarding psychiatry, etc., the profound dystopic sci-fi films La Jetee by Chris Marker and its cinematic progeny, Twelve Monkeys by Terry Gilliam.

Exceptional cinematography from Mr. Gordon Willis, inserting those faux-newsreel footage with the real ones are just cunning and way ahead of its time. The soundtrack with those uproarious songs such as "Leonard the Lizard," "Doin' the Chameleon," "Chameleon Days" by Dick Hyman blends in as well and passes of a genuine thing of having made in pre WW-Two.

This film is a convergence of Mr. Allen's brilliance of different skills sets that showcases his mastery of the cinematic medium: directing, acting (the most iconic Woody Allen on display here), and writing.

Only criticism that can be thrown in this film is that it would have been better if it ended at the halfway mark, the point where Zelig mutters that pancakes quote under a hypnotic trance. That definite quote already hit the bull's-eye. The pay-off ended already there, sad to say.

My rating: A-flat.

"Zelig" is a very clever movie, the kind you just know Woody Allen is capable of. In this "mockumentary," Woody plays Leonard Zelig, an insecure man who goes to the ultimate length to fit in. Mia Farrow offers the love interest as Dr. Eudora Fletcher. In "Zelig," we get to see Woody spliced into old footage, including the Nazi rally. This came before the effect became used more often, in movies like "Forrest Gump." I see this as a transition in Woody's movies. It comes somewhere between his early funnier movies, like "Bananas" and "Take the Money and Run," and his later, more introspective ones, like "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Husbands and Wives." It makes a statement about individuality, and produces laughs in the process.